"Under pressure from some members of Congress, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is easing up on regulating global warming pollution from facilities that burn biomass for energy."
"In industrialized nations, people expect their drinking water to be pathogen free, thanks to treatment facilities that filter and disinfect the water. However, after reviewing 26 studies from 18 countries, two scientists conclude that some amoeba species called free-living amoebas (FLA) consistently survive these treatments and quickly multiply in drinking-water distribution and storage systems. Given their potential to spread disease, these microbes are a human health risk that demands further study, the researchers say."
"The giant merger between the utilities Duke Energy Corp. and Progress Energy Inc. may have a telling impact on the congressional debate over U.S. energy policy during the new session."
"A federal appeals board yesterday ordered that Teresa Chambers be reinstated as chief of the U.S. Park Police, seven years after she was fired for telling reporters that her department was understaffed and in need of more funding."
The mysterious "sudden aspen decline" that is decimating many western forests also seems responsible for a spike in deer mouse populations that is hastening spread of the sin nombre virus, a still-rare hantavirus that kills some 40 % of the humans it infects.
"Grand Bois residents called for more testing of the air, water and soil around an oil-waste storage and treatment site Tuesday night as they gathered to protest the company’s latest permit applications."
Many publications and groups schedule special stories, reports, panels, or events during this week to promote freedom of information and to exercise their First Amendment rights. Find suggestions at the American Society of News Editors' official Sunshine Week website.
Now that you have long since published your story about the disappearance of BP's oil from the Gulf, you may want to check the math that story was based on using newly released technical information.
Is it a security risk for the American public to find out the risks presented by climate change? A recent story on the Central Intelligence Agency's Center on Climate Change and National Security by the Medill National Security Reporting Project was noteworthy in that all of its sources were unnamed.
A man claiming to be an ex-CIA agent is telling people they may stand to get rich if only they could come up with some dirt on scientist Michael Mann, author of the famous hockey-stick graph that shows the earth getting warm suddenly in recent years. No luck so far.
